Tuesday, 25 June 2013

Gunmen attack presidential palace in Kabul

.A group of Taliban suicide attackers has launched a dramatic
attack near the presidential palace and CIA offices at the heart of
Kabul's fortified diplomatic zone.

The attack kicked off just as
journalists were gathering for security checks ahead of a presidential
news conference. They reported seeing attackers exchange fire with
guards at the presidential and intelligence agency headquarters.
The
president himself never appeared to be in danger, locked away behind
several more walls inside the heavily fortified palace itself. One
source who was inside the complex, which has outer walls several dozen
metres thick in places, said the fighting never approached the inner
area.
"We can hear the attack but it seems to be a little distance
away," said the source, who asked not to be named as his job does not
allow him to speak to the media.
The Taliban claimed
responsibility for the attack, the first in the capital since they
unveiled an office in Qatar and plans for peace talks.
"At 6.30
this morning at the gate of the Arg [presidential palace], the site of
the ministry of defence and the Ariana hotel [used as a CIA
headquarters] several suicide attacks started," spokesman Zabihullah
Mujahid said in a text message.
There were more than half a dozen
large explosions that were heard across the city and sent smoke
billowing into the sky, and the attackers exchanged gunfire with
security forces for about 90 minutes.
The city police chief,
General Ayoub Salangi, said all the attackers had been killed by around
8am and life in the city was slipping back into normal routines,
although embassies and the Nato coalition remained locked down.